Josh Hamilton just hit 28 outrageous dingers in Yankee stadium off the 71 year old who tossed him batting practice when he was a kid. Hamilton didn’t even see live pitching for years as he struggled with drug and alcohol addiction.
Did I mention that he hit all those shots in one round? Did I mention he got more than the 3 other top hitters combined?
Sure, the Home Run Derby doesn’t mean anything, but how can’t you love a story like that?
I realize a lot of people think baseball is passé, a game that lingers on solely because of its connection to the American psyche. But what’s not to love about people crushing pitching 500 ft?
Now that he’s wrapped up the nomination, Sen. Obama has wasted little time in whoring himself to what Billie Joe of Green Day would call “Idiot America.”
Senator Obama unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies and has cosponsored Senator Dodd’s efforts to remove that provision from the FISA bill. Granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect. Senator Obama supports a filibuster of this bill, and strongly urges others to do the same. It’s not clear whether he can return for the vote, but under the Senate rules, the side trying to end a filibuster must produce 60 votes to cut off debate. Whether he is present for the vote for not, Senator Obama will not be among those voting to end the filibuster.
Today, he began pandering to idiot America.
He says he will support a bill even with Telco Immunity:
My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people.
People will defend this as moving to the center. It’s not moving to the center. It’s moving to the idiots. No one on the intelligent right, center or left wants to shred the Constitution. This is pandering to idiot quasi-fascists. And this insults our ability to hold him accountable for prior statements.
Perhaps that early 1984 Obama mashup video wasn’t so far off. It may be 2008, but it seems to me like 1984. The only thing wrong with the video is that Obama may wind up becoming the proponent of Big Brother rather than the hero who challenges it.
The United States Supreme Court today handed down a decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana. The question in the case was whether sentencing a convicted child rapist to death was cruel and unusual, such that it violates the Eighth Amendment. The court in a 5-4 majority said that it was a violation, and banned the death penalty for child rape.
You can argue that the outcome was wrong (I think it was right — maintaining the death penalty in any form keeps us in the company of such enlightened nations as Saudi Arabia, the People’s Republic of China and Zimbabwe). You can certainly argue the reasoning was wrong (I think it was wrong — as Justice Alito pointed out there’s far from a national consensus on the issue). But I don’t want to talk about that.
What I want to talk about is the fact that there are 5 Roman Catholics on the Court: Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito. All but one of them were found in the dissent, i.e. those that would uphold state-sanctioned killings. Justice Kennedy was the crucial swing vote that joined the 4 non-Catholics on the Court (2 Jews, an Episcopalian, and a vaguely defined Protestant). I don’t want to start some blogosphere holy war, or launch a discussion on the curiosity that there are only 2 Protestants on the court despite the fact that over 50% of Americans identify as such.
No what I want to talk about is that the Catholic members defy the Church. The Church, especially under Pope John Paul II, teaches that the death penalty is generally morally wrong:
If, however, nonlethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.
Yet 4/5 of the Catholic Justices seek to maintain it even though a child rapist isn’t going to rape any more children if thrown in jail for life without parole.
Meanwhile, when it comes to limiting abortion, it is often the Catholic Justices seeking to limit federal protections for the practice. Is there any consistency here?
Arguably the abortion debate is one that involves the nebulous area of “states’ rights.” Justice Scalia, for example, has said that overturning Roe does not mean that abortion would be made illegal in the United States, but merely that each State would decide its own laws governing the practice.
But returning to the death penalty debate, one has to wonder if the late George Carlin wasn’t on to something when he observed: “If it’s morally wrong to kill anyone, then it’s morally wrong to kill anyone. Period.” We kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong. If the Catholic Church gets hot and bothered by Catholics who support abortion rights, shouldn’t it be enraged when Catholics seek to uphold the death penalty in violation of church catechism? What if a Catholic votes for a candidate who supports the death penalty?
Harper’s did a mindblowingly good piece on the financial markets in February. I just read it. Wow. You need to read it. Now. Go. Stop reading this blog already and go check out Harper’s.
No there’s nothing related between the three topics. Just all three are on my mind.
Mickey Kantor
So if you haven’t heard, former US Trade Representative under President Clinton is in the news. Mickey Kantor, an advisor and longtime friend to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, is being crucified in the blogosphere for comments he is alleged to have made in 1992, during former President Clinton’s first presidential run.
This much is undisputed: During a conversation with Clinton advisors Ragin’ Cajun Jim Carville and George Stephanopoulos (who claims to be a “journalist” nowadays that does journalistic things like hosting free advertising time for Hillary Clinton), Mickey Kantor referred to someone as “shit.” The conversation was recorded by documentarians shooting what would wind up becoming The War Room.
It’s plausible to believe he called the people of Indiana “shit.” It’s also plausible to believe he was calling the pollsters “shit.” Perhaps he was calling the Republican administration “shit.” It’s not clear. Given Hillary Clinton’s historic antipathy towards working class whites, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the first. Now, I know it’s not fair to impute Hillary Clinton’s attitudes to her surrogates, but usually groupthink is at work in organizations like these. [Author's Revision: After watching the War Room unedited on YouTube, I think he was trying to say that these people are shitting in the White House.]
But that’s only part of the story.
The bigger part is what he allegedly said next, allegedly calling the people of Indiana “Worthless White Niggers.” Shocking, disturbing language. People from all walks of life are outraged. Digg is aflutter with calls for Kantor’s head.
Only one problem. It doesn’t sound like he said it. I remember watching The War Room in high school. When we saw the film, that comment wasn’t there. It’s clear that the film was edited to add the text about Kantor being a Hillary ‘08 supporter. Why not just add the scandalous comment to the part where Kantor whispers something just out of range of the microphones?
I’m no Hillary supporter, but it’s clear that this thing is a fraud. Youtube is ripping it down every time it goes up. Kantor’s threatening to sue.
So who made the video? There’s clearly going to be some backlash here. Given that there are four candidates that are still drawing support (Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Paul), I imagine it was someone supporting one of the four.
I think we can rule out Clinton. You don’t want people in Indiana even thinking you may be affiliated with someone who said this, even if your strategy is to try and show that it came from some other candidate in a sort of Burning of the Reichstag strategy.
Apparently the story broke on the pro-Obama blogosphere. I imagine if (IF!) the editor is identified to be an Obama supporter this will be yet another black eye in what is turning out to be an awful* month for the Obama camp. (*although I believe that much of the perception is driven by the media, which then feed’s into people’s perceptions, which then drives media coverage, i.e. we have an iterative expectation). If it is out of an Obama supporter, this will allow the Clintons to continue whining unjustifiably that Obama is playing the race card.
John McCain’s supporters: too old to know what YouTube is, too technically inept to use Final Cut Express, and besides what would McCain stand to gain from smearing the #2 Democratic candidate. He’s going to need all his smears to bring down Obama in the fall. No use wasting some here.
Ron Paul’s supporters: definitely diehard enough, definitely technically proficient. But Ron Paul has enough problems right now trying to get access to delegates. Why take shots at Clinton?
So I think we can pretty safely say that this came from an Obama supporter, probably one who has suffered severe brain damage. I don’t think it was organized in any sort of way. I imagine it was just some guy sitting with a Mac in a coffee shop, splicing together some footage. It’s not that hard. Look what the guys at My Wall Street Journal did to Rupert Murdoch:
The whole thing is disgusting nonetheless.
Zimbabwe
So Bob Mugabe has rigged yet another election. The final vote tallies didn’t comport with the tallies taken in the polling stations immediately after the election, and there will now be a runoff. The Strongman of Zim won’t go easily. The opposition is now threatening to boycott the runoff in protest, meaning Mugabe will steamroll his way to another 5 year term, making sure to wreak havoc on the country in the meantime. Lord knows how many people have been killed by Bob’s roving death squads of “veterans.” All the meanwhile, the West does, er…absolutely nothing. Thabo Mbeki (aka Bob’s lap dog), continues to give him international legitimacy. And the people of Zimbabwe are screwed once again.
Facebook
So over conversation last night, a friend mentioned that his girlfriend demanded that he get on Facebook so he could confirm their relationship. It occurred to me that Facebook now serves the function on college campuses (and in the real world) of the public ceremony of a boy giving a girl his fraternity pin or class ring as a sign of a relationship. Nowadays, you get “confirmed” on Facebook.
Personally, I find Facebook a little to creepy, but here’s a crash course to this brave, new world for the uninitiated anyhow.
You meet someone at a party, bar, gym, supermarket, etc.. You hook up. You now have several choices.
1) Do nothing with your relationship status.
2) Change it to “in a relationship” and request the person.
3) Change it to “it’s complicated” and request the person.
4) Change it to “in a relationship” or “it’s complicated” and don’t request the person.
The clear answer is number 1. Do #2 and you are a freak. #3 and you are a freak who’s also a drama queen. #4 and you are a sad person who likely has no friends.
So let’s say you have been dating for a while, and you decide to have “the talk.” Now it’s clear that whoever brought up “the talk” wants something more in their relationship status. The other person has two choices: cave and confirm “in a relationship,” or counter-offer with “it’s complicated.” Counter-offering is a dangerous tactical move that I can recommend only if you never see yourself dating that person seriously. It’s difficult to move from “it’s complicated” to “in a relationship,” but easier to move from “in a relationship” to “it’s complicated” and vice versa if you start at “in a relationship” (this is particularly true if you are the Emo-type: see, then you have a tortured, romantic relationship, as opposed to just being a horny bastard).
Now, because the other person is notified if the other person breaks the relationship on Facebook, this can lead to some interesting consequences. With the spread of iPhones, Blackberries and 3G, you can figure out if that guy or girl you like is really single. Just hop on Facebook, and assuming their profile is public, see what their status is. A cheater can take off a wedding ring, perhaps, but Facebook never lies.
I would like to share with you a theory that I call “the Green card phenomenon.”
Lately, there has been an overwhelming will for the American Government to invite non-citizens to get American citizenship. Fill out a few forms, take an interview, and, with a bit of luck and patience, you have a green card — a form that allows you to work and live in the US. Interestingly, the Africans who get wind of this opportunity are the cream of the continent — educated & exposed, complete with access to television, MTV and the Internet. Many have degrees in engineering, medicine, computer science and architecture. The USA Government knows this and uses the “Green card” to lure the African cream to the US. They do not do this so as to benefit from it, but because they want to deny Africa the capacity to flourish from it. With apologies to There Will Be Blood, (BRAIN) DDDDRRRAAAINNAGE!
On the other hand, the US is stiffening immigration laws relentlessly to keep out the “debris.”
When one is invited for the interview, you may not realise it, but you have already become a slave. Before you go to start working for your Caucasian purchasers, the interviewer minutely inspects your persona. They then inquire into your state of health: do you have any infirmity? Bad eye sight? Bad teeth, weak joints, narrow chest? And this goes on.
If you have been afflicted in any manner, you are rejected outright. At these interviews or ‘auction stands’, bones, muscles, sinews, blood and nerves of human beings are checked and consequently sold. Only this time, it is much worse because the Africans are willing to pay for the trip on the slave ship and betray their own continent!
Europeans justified the taking of slaves by arguing that they were providing an opportunity for Africans to become Christians. By the 17th Century, the removal of slaves from Africa became a ‘holy cause’ that had the full support of the Christian church!! Today, the justification is that the American Government is providing Africans with an opportunity of a life that cannot be attained in Africa.
After 1850s, there was a sharp decline in the able-bodied population of most of the African continent. This created a problem for Africa as the labour needed to exploit the natural resources of the land had already been pillaged. Eventually, the African continent entered a spiral of detoriaration and depletion. Many have often wondered why Africa turned from the craddle of civilisation to the heart of darkness, misfortune and constant degeneration. Perhaps this might be one of the possible answers to the above question. The “Green card” leaves half the applicants hoping and wishing for better luck next time and spending the most part of their lives applying, or finding other means to get into the USA. The other supposedly lucky half who could have effected the great knowledge and skill they attained to better their country and kin are instead now trapped in a spiral of deepening degradation and retreat, with no foreseeable end to depression.
This kind of modern enslavement must be checked if Africa is to contextually develop.
//Religion must exist to protect the rich from being attacked by the poor//
LIBYAN leader Col. Muammar Gadaffi yesterday urged President Yoweri Museveni to rule for life as long as he has the will of the people. Closing the 10- day Afro-Arab Youth Festival at Speke Resort in Munyonyo, Col. Gadaffi said he has no faith in western-style democracy that emphasises multiparty politics and presidential term limits.It “only fuels divisionism in Africa, a continent already shattered by colonial imbalances,” the Libyan leader claimed. Addressing Afro-Arab youth delegates from 30 countries, Col. Gadaffi, speaking in Arabic, said western-style democracy was incompatible with the African system.“Why should a leader relinquish power when he is doing good things for his people? There are people who talk about term limits. What are they [term limits]? A constitution is simply a document drafted by people.”Col. Gadaffi added: “A leader should only leave power by the will of the people for example; President Museveni came into power through revolutionary means not the vote. How can he simply go?”This is the second time Col. Gadaffi is urging Mr Museveni to stay on. Col. Gadaffi, who is spearheading the quest for the United States of Africa, urged Arabs outside Africa to join the integration. “I call upon our Arab brothers outside Africa to join to form the United States of Africa because if they don’t do this they will be left in isolation,” he said.On the same occasion, President Museveni said: “We need to invest together, stand together and if there is any problem between Africans and Arabs like in Sudan, the differences should be resolved by discussions and not violence.”He praised the Libyan leader for adopting “an independent policy, not a policy dictated by the West”. The second Afro-Arab Youth Festival, following the first one in Khartoum in 2004, set out to discuss many subjects, from health to climate change to gender issues.
When I digested the above information, I couldn’t help but comment on two of the statements made by the Libyan president:
“Why should a leader relinquish power when he is doing good things for his people?” the president asked. Well I am only concerned about the morality and the yardstick involved in defining “a leader who does good things for his people.” In any case who should determine that the leader is doing good things and should stay in power? Should it be the leader or the led? What if an African president thinks (like it has always been) that he is doing very good things and that he deserves to stay in power and yet the electorate thinks otherwise?
In addition, Gadaffi breaks all rules of logic when he bluntly says: “A constitution is simply a document drafted by people.” I am left wondering whether he is advocating for the rejection of all documents that have been drafted by people. Would the proponents of that line of thought agree with me that we should reject the Bible, the Koran and other related books, provided we confirm that they were written by people. While it is true that the constitutions of most African democracies were drafted by the former colonizing powers, the solution is no to discard but instead” to Africanise them.
While I do not agree with the idea of a life presidency, I have a serious moral concern for the outrageous sums of money that are spent on regular presidential elections whose results can be predicted by any average person. Certain truths are held to be self-evident in Africa, amongst them that
It is almost impossible for an incumbent to loose an election.
Those who count the votes are more important than those who vote. The latter may suggest, but it is the former who decide.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is fresh off victories in the Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island primaries (although she did take less delegates out of Texas than Sen. Barack Obama). Listening to the mainstream media, one might think that her campaign is newly energized, on the attack, and now has the momentum. However this is a perfect example of why the cheerleading of the mainstream media is wrong. In their sycophancy of the candidates (both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama), they have shirked their duties of actually reporting and instead taken to simply parroting the talking points of the campaigns. There are two major exceptions to this: Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. Mr. Alter and Mr. Robinson both are aware that Clinton’s victories are pyrrhic at best. She may have “won” the popular vote, but she netted under 10 delegates. However as the media reports the primary and caucus victories as if they were general election victories one gets the impression that Sen. Clinton had a blowout victory, even though she is likely to have netted less out of the five elections in the four states than Sen. Obama likely will net out of Wyoming and Mississippi. However the major networks obsession with “calling” states as if they were winner-take-all (a la the general election) allows Sen. Clinton to claim that she has momentum, even though she is now further away from the nomination than she was before Texas & Ohio. Throw in the fact that Sen. Clinton will likely continue now until the convention and you can see why her victory is a pyrrhic one for the Democratic Party. They will continue to in-fight. Sen. Clinton will continue to praise John McCain, and denigrate Sen. Obama, giving red meat to the Republican Party in the general election.To make this abundantly clear, Sen. Clinton cannot win without overthrowing the will of the people. Even seating Florida, where the candidates did not campaign, and Michigan, where Sen. Obama was not even on the ballot by request of the Democratic Party (John Edwards also withdrew from the ballot), Sen. Clinton will fall short. A re-vote will benefit Sen. Obama but will raise complicated issues of double-voting: what if someone voted in the Republican primary for Sen. McCain, but then wants to vote again in the re-do Democratic election? This is something I have not heard addressed as of yet.
Since Sen. Clinton cannot win the pledged delegate count nor the popular vote (i.e. the pure number of people who voted for her), her only hope will come down to the superdelegates. Superdelegates have so far favored Sen. Clinton, by about roughly 250-200. There are still roughly 350 delegates who have not expressed their position publicly. What should be clear though is that the superdelegates will do what is best for the party. Nominating someone who lost the pledged delegate count and the popular vote is not good for the party. Therefore they will fall in line behind Sen. Obama, as he will likely have more delegates and more popular votes. He will be the nominee. We will not see the convention go past 2 or 3 ballots, in my opinion. I believe that there will not be a nominee on the first ballot because the uncommitted superdelegatess will allow the elected delegates to vote first, to show the country that no candidate garnered the necessary 2,025. The pledged delegates will show that Sen. Obama has the support of more people. Then the superdelegates will cast their votes in support of Sen. Obama, and he will be the nominee.
It also makes sense for the Democrats to nominate Obama because he has broader support amongst the states. Obama is the logical result of Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy, i.e. running serious candidates in each and every state, instead of fighting in two or three highly contested swing states (e.g. Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania).
Now, you may wonder, why broader support matters. Four syllables: filibuster. In fact, it’s more important than just a filibuster, but using the Senate will be illustrative, particularly as the New York Times has already broken down many of the Senate races. Sen. Obama at the head of the ticket will help Down-Ticket Dems from Governors and Representatives, all the way down to dog catchers and utility district managers. This is also why superdelegates will probably back Sen. Obama: they themselves are mostly Down-Ticket Dems who need someone popular at the head of their ticket in their own states.
Now let’s take a look at the actual maps. Survey USA compiled McCain-Obama and McCain-Clinton matchups for each state. While I am aware that these are only polls, and polls can be woefully wrong, it explodes a number of Sen. Clinton myths about the general election: namely that she will fare better in Texas, and that somehow Ohio won’t vote for Sen. Obama. The maps on the SurveyUSA website are not so helpful because they don’t account for states where one Democratic candidate is stronger than another (it’s either red or blue). So to remedy that flaw, I compiled a few of my own map based on the data at SurveyUSA (god bless, insomnia). Here is the result.
States in dark blue are states where both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama beat Sen. McCain.
States in royal blue are states where Sen. Obama beats Sen. McCain, but Sen. Clinton does not.
States in light blue-green are states where Sen. Clinton beats Sen. McCain, but Sen. Obama does not.
States in light red are states where Sen. Clinton fares better than Sen. Obama does, but both still lose to Sen. McCain.
States in dark red are states where Sen. Obama fares better than Sen. Clinton does, but still loses to Sen. McCain.
Kansas, Tennessee, and Nebraska are given their own colors because they don’t fit this format:
Nebraska: Sen. Obama will win 2 electoral votes in Nebraksa, while McCain will win 3. Sen. Clinton would win 0 electoral votes in Nebraska, while Sen. McCain will win 5.
Tennessee: Sen. Clinton ties Sen. McCain there, while Sen. Obama would lose handily.
Kansas: Both Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama fare equally poorly against Sen. Clinton.
A few interesting things jump out at me from that map, Sen. Obama does better in the Mountain West, Sen. Clinton does better in the South, and they both win the Democratic states like New York, California, Hawaii, and Illinois. Not that big of a deal.
But let’s isolate each candidate. If a candidate is +/-5% then I have put them in purple. If the candidate maintains more than a 5% lead against Sen. McCain than I have colored them in dark blue. If Sen. McCain maintains more than a 5% lead against the candidate, I have colored that state red. I know, so original.
First, Sen. Clinton:
Then there’s Sen. Obama:
There should be something deeply disturbing about these maps should Sen. Clinton win the nomination. Mull those over, count up how many states Obama turns purple, and I’ll be back with Part II - Senate Races and the Purple Map.
At last, Kenya’s president and opposition leader signed a deal to create a power-sharing Government with a hope to end a post-election crisis that plunged the country into one of its most disastrous periods since independence. The turmoil was sparked by incumbent President Mwai Kibaki’s disputed re-election in the December 27th vote, which triggered ethnic clashes that killed at least 1,000 people, and forced 300,000 more to flee their homes.To many Americans (and probably the entire Western world), the recent “history” described above could well be news to them.
I, however, totally understand that due to the ongoing historical presidential campaign in the United States, the international media has drawn attention away from Africa, trying to give more coverage to the elections. Plus, there is a high likelihood that an average American doesn’t really care what goes on in Kenya, let alone know a thing about it. However, the recent political crisis has lessons to offer us, as I will try to highlight below:
1) A blow to Western Democratic models:
Under the new deal, the new position of prime minister will be created for Raila Odinga, the leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (the main opposition coalition), despite Kenya’s structure as a presidential government. The mimicry of Western Democratic models, characterised by one dominant ruling party versus opposition leaders who strongly oppose the the dominant group, will come to an and. For the first time in Kenya, we are going to see a Government that constitutionally shares powers with the Opposition. Much as the new development may not guarantee an end to the ethnic tensions between the Kikuyus and the Luos*, the emergence of a new Prime Minister who will share some executive powers with the President will allow some form of equity and an increased sense of representation.
2) The turmoil jeopardised Bush’s position as a World Democratic figure:
It so happened that that the crisis in Kenya coincided with President George W. Bush’s Visit to Africa. This, coupled with the economic puzzles in the U.S. stemming from the housing meltdown, forced him to turn a deaf ear to the Kenyan “situation.” There would be no intervention. If the economy had been fine in America, we would have heard statements like, “The crisis in Kenya is a really unfortunate one and deserves an urgent intervention by America. Let’s send some troops and some relief aid to restore order.” What is even more interesting is the fact that negotiations to end the turmoil happened when the “benign President” was touring Africa. Among the countries that he visited was Tanzania, which just so happens to share a border with Kenya. The Crisis in Kenya is only a confirmation that Africa can not go back to its good past, but rather to integrate the past models with the current ones (mostly Western) so as to find solutions to the modern challenges. However, I submit that this is only possible if Africans are left to independently suggest solutions to crucial governance issues that concern them. African solutions for African problems; just like what took place in Kenya.
*For those unaware with the history of Kenya, Kikuyus were generally favored over other ethnic group during British colonialism. This favoritism has continued even in independence, with Kikuyus occupying many of the best jobs in government, business, and industry. To this day, a Luo has never been elected president of Kenya, leading to the joke that America will elect a Luo president before Kenya. Barack Obama’s father was a Luo.
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